15:56, 31 May 2006, Feeling aggravated

I discovered the reason for the window in the close being propped open. At first I thought, 'what the hell?', that'll let the pigeons in. But yesterday I realised that it's actually to let the pigeons OUT. Like, they had already got in, somehow. I spent most of this morning slowly going insane with the coooing sound coming from outside my front door. Whatever I did I just couldn't get them to fly out through the open window; they just kept flying up, and up, and up, until they hit the ceiling. Mad! Eventually the postman came, and I'm not sure if the pigeons were either scared or charmed by him, but after that they seemed to disappear... How on earth did they get in in the first place?? :-|

21:05, 29 May 2006, Feeling

So, the holiday weekend... how on earth do I sum it up? “I’m seeing everything in Hexics” said Abe, “Everything I look at has 5 sides!”. “Abe” I said, “Hexagons have 6 sides, not 5”.

Abe came over on Sunday afternoon, after which we went out to get some lunch and raid the micro Tesco. We were just walking back along Argyll Street when I noticed that something wasn’t quite right with the traffic. Like, it wasn’t moving at all. Initially I thought a bus had broken down at the corner, so we kept walking, until we could see the other side of the stoppage. Get this; an old(ish) woman had been run over by a bus. Well, it was a bit weird, I mean half of her body was under the middle of the bus, and her head and chest were out on the street. The bus driver was out looking after her, and a small crowd of Sunday shoppers had gathered around to watch. Abe and I looked at each other wondering what the hell had happened. And then the sirens started; first an ambulance, then later followed by not one police car, but 3 (from all angles, that was pretty cool actually!), and lastly the fire brigade came, in two fire trucks plus the heavy lifting gear :-| By this time the crowd had probably grown to a couple hundred on-lookers, and the police were starting to take statements. Abe thought it was a good moment to snap off a few quick shots on his camera - hopefully some of them will come out well enough to post up on his site (http://blog.abenet.co.uk). Then, amazingly, the woman disappeared, and the crowd started to dissipate. The whole thing was just so very... odd. I still can’t work out if she had genuinely been struck by the moving bus, or if she had simply walked straight into it as it came round the corner. I guess that’s one for the police to find out...

Later on we’re sitting in Wetherspoons, waiting for our meals, when we begin to overhear the couple next to us complaining that they haven’t had their Sunday roasts yet, and they had ordered them over an hour ago. Eventually they kicked up a fuss, and it turned out that the order had simply ‘gone missing’. Many apologies were made, the couple went out for a smoke, and soon two plates of ‘Sunday roast’ appeared on their table. Now, I’m not the world’s most seasoned food critic, but the bits of meat looked like they had been shaved off a tin of cat food, and the Yorkshire pud looked like it had been sat on. A lot. By a fat man. So the couple come back, sit down, and then all hell breaks loose. So again they kicked up a fuss, sent the plates back to the kitchen and demanded two fresh meals. 5 minutes later, two plates arrived, this time looking ever so slightly better. Within seconds more complaints were being spat out by the woman – at this point we felt it was best to leave, as it was just getting too funny, so off to the cinema we went.

The Da Vinci Code, whatever anyone says about it, is well worth a look. Personally, I enjoyed it so much that I may even buy it when it eventually arrives on DVD. Brilliant soundtrack, great cast and an uber interesting storyline. But then again, I’ve not read the book, and it may have helped that I was totally intoxicated by the EXTREME perfume belonging to the girl next door. Which reminds me, I’ve still got Minstrels in my bag, mmmm.

After that we walked back from the city centre to Anniesland, which was very cool. It’s a 5 mile walk, and walking through a city between midnight and two in the morning is just... :-)

Abe conveniently decided to wake up sometime the next afternoon, so we went out on this crazy drive around the western suburbs of Glasgow and into Argyll & Bute. We spent about an hour at this cool little beach down by the Firth of Clyde, doing typical beach type stuff (skimming pebbles, sitting on the sand, skimming pebbles and.... sitting on the sand again) and taking pictures. Some of those pictures might end up in the Gallery, once I find out what everything is called! And then somehow we ended up following slow-assed Grovers over the Erskine Bridge to Govan Asda... madness.

There is so much other stuff that I just can’t remember enough detail about, or that I’m too damn lazy to write about – hopefully Abe’s blog will be slightly more amusing and thorough than my attempt :-)

20:39, 27 May 2006, Feeling

Just captured an awesome shot of the sky: "Rays of light in the distance"

18:02, 27 May 2006, Feeling

I turned my Xbox 360 on today for the first time in ages... Downloaded the Test Drive Unlimited demo off marketplace, and I can't say that I'm all that impressed. Of course, maybe that's because the moment I took the lambo out for a spin, I crashed it, and the steering broke :-| I think I just turned the console off after that.

Anyway, hopefully going to see The Da Vinci Code tomorrow night. I really wanna know if it's as poor as all the critics make it out to be!

15:23, 25 May 2006, Feeling

It's a slow Thursday afternoon in the office, although I guess the moment I post this things will suddenly become busy. Went out around Glasgow last night scouting for new photo opportunities - found loads, but didn't have the right lens with me! Never mind, I still got some pretty decent shots, and it's the practice that counts after all. I might put a couple of the new shots in the Glasgow gallery later, depending on whether I feel it's safe to do so :-| Two hours and 37 minutes until I go off in search of Edam. Don't ask!

11:42, 23 May 2006, Feeling

I got this great new album on Sunday; Takk by Sigur Ros. If you've never heard of them, or heard their stuff, then I definitely recommend checking them out!

Went to sleep last night trying to think up ways of making enough money to buy the fisheye I'm wanting. I'm prepared to wait as long as it takes, but in reality Summer is fast approaching, and I'd love to have it before then so I can get the most out of it this year. Knowing me I'll probably find a way, oh wait, was that another eBay auction I just started? :-)

Work is slow today, even with the release of AMD's new AM2 platform. I'm hardly surprised, a 1% performance improvement here and there just isn't enough to get worked up about. Hell, I didn't even realise AM2 was out today until about 5PM yesterday. :Yawn: Hmmm, I desperately need to get a UK dictionary added to Firefox; it keeps wanting me to spell things with Z instead of S!

P.S. If anyone is looking for some decent DDR2 memory to go with their brand new AM2 system (:P), check out http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Corsair-Value-2GB-PC2-5300-DDR2-Memory-2-x-1024MB_W0QQitemZ6884683810QQcategoryZ74942QQcmdZViewItem

18:27, 21 May 2006, Feeling

Went over to Ayr yesterday with a mate, and stopped off at Prestwick Airport to check out photographic possibilities. Looks like you can get really close to things without getting into trouble, so that's pretty cool. Not so cool is Ayr's Wetherspoons; Can I have a pint of Staropramen please? We haven't got any of that. Can I have a pint of Lowenbrau then please? Not got that either. What the hell have you got then!? Errr... Budweiser, Tennents... At this point I gave up and got bottled stuff instead!

The main event of the day was my niece's first birthday (Happy Birthday!), for which I joined my sister's family for a nice meal out in the new Xscape (http://www.xscape.co.uk/) place. Got some good pictures, using my 50mm f1.4 glass. It really suits that kind of photography. And we finished just in time to go back and watch Big Bro before I headed back to Glasgow on a train full of drunks (OK, I guess I was one of them :-/). Top Gear tonight, and then back to work!

22:08, 19 May 2006, Feeling

Well there isn't really much to post about other than Big Brother 7. Oh my god; they have totally out-done themselves this time with the selection of people :| And my fellow glaswegian is almost exactly like a male version of Lorraine Kelly, which is just plain terrifying. I was determined not to watch it this year, but after someone telling me there was a rumour of a real live cow being involved, I just had to find out... damn them and their rumours!

09:37, 18 May 2006, Feeling

I would have posted something last night, but by the time I got back in I was ready for bed! Went out with a couple of mates to watch Mission Impossible 3, and then came back here for drinks. Kinda cool driving through Glasgow at half midnight on a Wednesday; so quiet! The down side is I'm still trying to wake up after sleeping not too well... Anyway, just been told I have to do some work, so more later!

19:46, 15 May 2006, Feeling

I decided that I should probably provide slightly more descriptive names for my images than simply IMG_1000.jpg etc, so I've begun the process of going through the gallery renaming things. Annoyingly there are a few things that I either can't remember where they were taken, or I don't know the name. I once read somewhere that you should really keep a little notebook with you so you can write down these things at the time. Now I see why!

Anyhow, I had some fun the other night stopping my L glass right down to f22.0 and taking shots out my window on the tripod. It makes for pretty 'twinkly lights', and the sky that night wasn't so bad either. Result: http://www.martinsawyer.com/work/Twinkly_Lights.jpg

21:50, 13 May 2006, Feeling

Just been trying to catch up on the 2nd series of Lost - wow, the first episode had me hooked (again) within 30 minutes, and I've just finished watching the third! If it's something you've never seen, it's definitely one to watch all the way from the beginning... excellent stuff.

10:14, 12 May 2006, Feeling

It's weird coming home from a long holiday to find the weather better at home than what it was when you left whatever exotic place you were staying in! That's not to say I didn't have my fair share of good weather in Europe; some days temperatures were as high as 25c, which for April is pretty good! It was a holiday full of much contrast, and not just the weather (sunshine one day, snow the next) either, but also the people. Some places I wouldn't go back to again, and some I can't wait until I get the chance to go next. And, like any good holiday, it made me realise more of the good things about my home country (read: smoking laws!). Anyway, it's nice to be back, and especially with such awesome weather!!

13:46, 11 May 2006, Feeling

Got back into Glasgow late last night from my Europe 2006 holiday :-) I put much more emphasis on getting good photos with interesting compositions than last year, which meant doing a lot more hiking to find good spots to shoot from. It paid off in most cases, even when the weather was poor! I'm slowly adding pictures to a new Europe 2006 gallery (found under Holidays), but I'm working just now so progress is slow :-) More later!